Korea’s air passenger traffic hits record 109 million

Korea’s air passenger traffic reached a new record high last year on growing travel demand, while flight delays declined due to improved schedule management, the Transport Ministry said Sunday.

In 2017, the country’s passenger traffic on domestic and international routes stood at 109.36 million, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement.

The rate of overall flight delays fell 3.8 percentage points to 9.5 percent last year compared to the year before. On domestic routes, the rate dropped to 12 percent from 18.6 percent over the same period, while the rate on international routes edged up to 5.9 percent from 5.2 percent, it said.

Foreign airlines that offer services through Korean airports posted a delay rate of 6.5 percent last year, down from the previous year’s 6.8 percent, the statement said.

Korea has two full-service airlines – Korean Air and Asiana Airlines. It also has six low-cost carriers, which are Jin Air, Jeju Air, Air Busan, Air Seoul, Eastar Jet and T’way Air.